Feeling a bit sorry for Gillian McKeith
Yes, I know, I know. "Doctor" and all that. Looking at shit. Possibly non-fainting faints. The behaviour on Twitter. Telling people that having a breadmaker is pretty much akin to child abuse. All of those things, sure. But come off it - aren't we meant to be the good guys?
I get no pleasure from watching someone who is a bit of a twerp being put through the same torments every single day for televisual entertainment. She ends up gaining respect and admiration, and we end up looking like arseholes. That's not the way it should be. And besides, there seems to be a rather unpleasant 'make the woman suffer' attitude to IACGMOOH - you can recall from previous years when the same old faces who clearly despised the 'challenges' got picked day after day. Oh, I don't know, it just seems a wee bit like bullying. Which is fine if you like pushing the weedy kid's face into the dirt and standing around laughing with the big boys... but, ah, there's just something about it that makes me uncomfortable.
Look, I can't stand the person. Or should I say, couldn't. She's starting to grow on me a little. And that's what I don't like. I see her getting more and more battered by these pointless insect-based 'trials' and I think, the less dignified it is, the more dignity she's gaining.
That makes me sad. I don't want her to be redeemed by all this.
Can't we vote for some other fool? Linford? Su Pollard? Anyone...? Please.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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November 20th, 2010 - 08:46
How badly behind with the mortgage would u have to be to go on this prog? I’d rather downsize.
November 20th, 2010 - 10:06
I don’t want Gillian to be redeemed by all this. But I don’t think she will be. She’s not being plucky and determined and stoic. She’s whinging and whining.
But ultimately, don’t forget that Gillian is in control here. She’s signed up for this (despite ‘never having seen the show’ – that’s either phenomenally naive or just a downright lie) – probably for quite a decent fee. She can refuse to do any challenge if she wants. She can walk any time she wants. If she really was ‘phobic’ of water, or bugs, or whatever – she would just point blank refuse. I can see she doesn’t like it, but she’s not phobic.
The sad thing is that she’s doing this for the fee and in some vain hope that it will raise her profile. If she was a regular viewer, she’d realise just how unlikely that is.
November 20th, 2010 - 10:52
Two comments:
1. The whole show is a tawdry mix of animal cruelty, disrespect for nature and bullying. It demeans participants and viewers alike.
2. But having said that, she knew what she was taking part in (unless she’s an idiot) and the only reason to take part is a cynical image-boosting cash-in when your career has died.
So fuck her and all who make or watch this filth.
November 20th, 2010 - 10:59
oh COME ON! She voluntarily put herself in that situation.
But why someone who has “phobias” of water/insects/won’t-eat-anything-but-mung-beans.. would choose to go on that show is beyond me.
November 20th, 2010 - 12:05
The rules of this game have been fairly well defined by historical precedent, though – if she floats, she’s a witch!
As for being bullied though – proper clinical nutritionist Professor John Garrow once cast doubt on some of her sciencey-sounding gobbledygook, by formulating an experiment that would test if it was true. Garrow wrote: “My hypothesis is that any benefits which Dr McKeith has observed in her patients who take her living food powder have nothing to do with their enzyme content. If I am correct, then patients given powder which has been heated above 118F for 20 minutes will do just as well as patients given the active powder. This amount of heat would destroy all enzymes, but make little change to other nutrients apart from vitamin C, so both groups of patients should receive a small supplement of vitamin C (say 60mg/day). However, if Dr McKeith is correct, it should be easy to deduce from the boosting of energy, etc, which patients received the active powder and which the inactivated one.”
For this, McKeith’s lawyer husband apparently got in touch with Garrow to threaten legal action for defamation. To me, that’s bullying. Source – http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/feb/12/advertising.food
Also – as has already been widely reported, she’s only four months older than Nigella Lawson and yet to seems to be visibly a physical wreck who can scarcely stop fainting – it’s really not much of an advert for her health supplements and magic potions, is it?
Come to think of it I reckon she probably WOULD float.
November 20th, 2010 - 12:07
Didn’t the same thing happened to Jordan? Did she leave with admiration and respect? If anything, judging by the fact she’s virtually disappeared over the past year, she left the jungle more hated than ever.
November 20th, 2010 - 17:02
The difference between Gillian and the weedy kid is that she actually volunteered for it. She has the option to leave any time she wants but she’s desperately trying to revive her career and walking out will most likely mean she loses her fee. That’s why it’s ok to point and laugh.
November 20th, 2010 - 22:26
I avoid feeling sorry for Gillian McKeith by not watching IACGMOOH in the first place. I don’t want to see anyone, not even quite rubbish celebrities, putting their faces in buckets of insects or eating kangaroo testicles or whatever it is. I don’t really hate anyone enough to want to see them upset. Apparently this makes me peculiar in this society.
November 20th, 2010 - 23:58
You know what will make you feel better? stop watching that crap. Watching it, writing about it, you’ll only encourage them. Do yourself a favour, it’s time to let go…
November 21st, 2010 - 13:30
We have turned into a nation of bullies. What kind of an example are we setting for our kids/teenagers. If this happened to a child in school the whole country would be horrified and up in arms. It’s a total ‘Yay she’s a terrified, pathetic, weak (especially in this series) slip of a woman with real phobias so lets stick the boot in again and again’.
Whilst it might have been amusing at the start, especially knowing the Gillian we all love to hate was finally getting her comeuppance – now enough is enough.
I’m concerned too that we haven’t heard the other contestants complaining about the bullying aspect of it all either. (maybe it has been cut out) but not one of them has stood up at the trial deciders and said to Ant and Dec this isn’t on! Do they want to win that badly that they can’t stick up for her and refuse to allow it to happen.
Gillian made a huge mistake going into the jungle, what planet was she living on when previous series were being aired – but that does not constitute bullying! Enough is enough – Leave her alone!
On a plus side she deserves to win after all she’s been through!
November 21st, 2010 - 16:12
Ben Goldacre is the only reason I know who Gillian McKeith is. I’ve never watched her TV programme, read her books or seen an episode of this In The Jungle Reality Show (honestly having difficulty recalling the name of the show). Nor have I ever watched five minutes of the X-Factor, Come Dancing or The Apprentice (and have seen a grand total of 20 minutes of Big Brother right back when it was first broadcast to see what the fuss was all about).
I say this not as some kind of bid for superiority, but to illustrate the oft-forgotten fact that you have a choice. This vile sludge is, in my increasingly marginalised opinion, ripping the heart out of modern culture and by extension doing real damage to our society. A world where bewildered, damaged and publicity-hungry individuals undermine, humiliate and bully one another in front of mass audiences; and where those mass audiences find entertainment value not merely in the spectacle itself, but in endlessly commenting on the spectacle… is not a healthy world.
Intelligent, articulate, switched-on people like yourself should be able to find other things to write about. We all have a choice in whether or not we wish to participate in this nauseating nonsense. And I can assure you, my life is not any worse for opting out.
November 22nd, 2010 - 00:17
I am arachnophobic. This means there are two things I never do:
1. Watch I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here
2. Visit Australia.
I very much doubt if Ms McKeith is genuinely phobic.
November 22nd, 2010 - 10:24
i really enjoy reality television. i much prefer it to fairy-tales and the land of make believe. i would never watch a fictional program on the tellybox. i like programmes like this because it allows you to observe and analyse group dynamics, and how they evolve, from the outside, without interfering. to an intelligent individual, there is far more to be gained from watching real events and the way that relationships are formed, than there watching downton abbey. for example, i thought it was fascinating when the new people joined the group. 1 person joined about 4 days in, and then another new person came along the day after that. although they didn’t arrive together, it was fascinating to see that these 2 people immediately formed a bond.
November 22nd, 2010 - 16:31
@NOSH
You actually think anything about ‘reality TV’ is real? Anything that’s not, in fact, scripted is manipulated and carefully edited to produce the precise fictional narrative the producers wish to present. It’s no more real than a scripted, acted drama (fairy tale on the tellybox if you genuinely prefer), but it is more demeaning to humanity and, crucially for the televsion companies, considerably cheaper to produce.
November 23rd, 2010 - 09:00
how many reality tv shows have you been involved in the production of? your post is based on speculation, and while i would be a fool not to see some truth in what you are saying, i think you go one step too far in your analysis. it is clearly more real than a scripted and acted drama. producers cannot control every single minute aspect of the shows, a large proportion of the human interactions are genuine. do you think the producers decide who talks to who? i think not. it would be impossible. i’m sorry if i offended your precious acted dramas, but why a grown adult would want to spend time watching something COMPLETELY 100% from the land of make believe is beyond me. what can you learn from it? i do not watch much telly, but i prefer to watch something at least based in reality, around real interactions, that i can take something from .e.g attenborough, deadliest catch, QI, reality programmes and sport. what do you watch then?
November 23rd, 2010 - 09:08
p.s. the cost of a tv programme makes no difference to whether i watch it, so not sure what your point is there. and it is no more demeaning to humanity than humanity is itself. they are humans. they do stuff. it gets filmed. if the producers decide to provoke and show certain behaviours, these are still genuine human reactions and aspects of humanity. i can understand if you just said the shows were trashy and you didn’t like them. but to try and disprove somebody’s reasons for liking something, when they have clearly thought it through, is quite a peculair decision to take.
November 22nd, 2010 - 11:27
Quite astonishing (or not) to read comments that seem to allign not watching reality TV with intellect. But anyway…I find it incredibly hard to find sympathy with Gillian, especially since she’s a) being paid a ridiculous sum of money to go on it in the first place and b) faking some of it, I feel. She is an utter sham of a doctor who has pretty much made a career out of being a bully to people and helped kickstart this unbelievable craze on Channel 4 that I dub ‘social porn’ where shows like Embarrassing Illnesses, Supersize Vs Superskinny etc. are allowed to exist even though it’s the equivalent of poking people for an hour.
I will agree though that it is painfully boring if the same people do the trial over and over again and I can see why that comes across as bullying to some people.
November 22nd, 2010 - 12:50
She’s an idiot or – and this is more likely – her agent is. Fuck ‘em.
November 23rd, 2010 - 14:18
Thank you for writing the rant that’s been buzzing round my head. While I can’t feel sorry for Gillian McKeith in a million years, I find the bullying aspect of the voting terribly uncomfortable, and really not a good advert for the people of the country.